Baked Alaska
by SuperheroGirlX
Summary: Set in Triple Scoop. A short oneshot about how Pyro got away. Ryro. Pyro's POV.
1. John's POV

Summary: Set in _Triple Scoop_, a short one-shot for Bobby's Icequeen about how Pyro got away. Ryro. Pyro's POV.

A/N: This one's for Bobby's Icequeen, my faithful reader/reviewer.

Disclaimer: The characters and verse belong to Marvel and Fox respectively. I am only providing the circumstances.

**Baked Alaska**

John Allerdyce looked at the group standing defensively in the middle of his ring of fire. Kitty, Colossus, and Jubilee were unimportant, but the other three weighed heavily in his mind. This whole mess was Leech's fault. If he hadn't provided the doctors with a "cure" for mutantcy, Magneto wouldn't be powerless right now and Pyro wouldn't be here having to face down his two best friends.

There had always been something ironic in his and Bobby's friendship. They were polar opposites: Iceman and Pyro. Bobby the good guy, John the bad boy. Bobby was straight-laced, always followed the rules, and came from a happy family. John lived to break rules and pull pranks and his family was far from happy. But the two of them had still been friends for as long as they had both been at Xavier's.

And then Rogue came. She came between Bobby and John like nothing else had. Their pasts, their differences, none of that had mattered in their friendship. It was a girl that ultimately did them in. And John couldn't even be mad at her.

"I'm trying to do you a favor, Rogue, and put you back the way you're supposed to be," Pyro reasoned.

Magneto had been shot with a cure gun and wanted his powers back. The best way to do that was to capture Leech and use his DNA to reverse the process. But Magneto didn't want to test the anti-cure on himself, so they needed another mutant who'd gotten the cure. Magneto wanted to use Rogue as his guinea pig.

"NOW!" John shouted. Multiple Man leaped through the ring of fire and snatched Leech away from the group, leaving the X-Men stunned. John bit back a laugh as Kitty looked around and, with a start, realized what just happened. She ran after Pyro's accomplice and Colossus pounded after her.

Leech's little girlfriend made some threat that Pyro didn't really hear. He remembered seeing her around Xavier's, but didn't remember what her mutation was. He wasn't too worried about it; she wasn't important. John was more concerned about Bobby and Rogue than he was about the girl in the yellow dress. So he was surprised to find himself flat on his back with little lights exploding over him like fireworks.

"Jubilee!" Rogue yelled.

"Call your goon back!" Jubilee demanded, ignoring Rogue completely.

John didn't look up, but heard Bobby call, "Marie, what are you -"

The white lights faded from John's vision and he found Rogue standing over him. He could have sworn he saw worry in her face, but she was good at masking herself and almost anyone else would only have seen anger. Then, just to make a point, she kicked him. It wasn't as painful as it looked, but it caught John off guard and he reacted without thinking, grabbing Rogue's ankle and twisting it so she fell on top of him. Her bare skin touched his for the first time for what seemed like an eternity to John, but couldn't have been more than a few seconds. Neither one of the old friends moved.

He had her. All he had to do was push her away long enough to get himself out from under her. If he could do that, he could be on his feet before Rogue had time to escape. All he had to do was grab her and take her back to Magneto. Jamie already had Leech. John just had to bring back Rogue.

_"What happened to you John?"_ Rogue's words played back in his head. She had sounded disappointed in him, but concerned too.

_She's weak for getting the cure_, John tried to remind himself. _She's pathetic._ It was hard to think that in this position. Rogue could feel now and what kind of friend would he be if he took that away from her? Human contact was the only thing she'd ever really wanted. Could he really just hand her over to Magneto to be used again?

"John?" Rogue breathed.

_We are gods among men and she gave that up. She's running away from herself._

No matter what he said, John couldn't justify it to himself. Rogue could have run when he first showed up, but she didn't. Here she was, kicking him and getting herself captured. She wasn't a coward and she wasn't weak.

In the end he knew he'd hesitated too long anyway and now he would be dragged off to jail. Rogue was still on top of him, but Bobby wasn't turning him into a Pyro popcicle yet, so they couldn't have been in that position much longer than a few seconds. Now Bobby would come running over and trap John in a glacier and when he finally thawed, he would be in jail with Multiple Man's copy and a few Brotherhood members who had been lucky enough not to get dusted by Phoenix, but not lucky enough to escape the police.

Then Rogue was levering herself off of him and whispering in his ear, "Find what you need to find and come home." She pushed herself back to her feet, somehow managing to pull him up too. Behind Rogue, Bobby was fuming. John was sure that if Bobby wasn't covered in ice, steam would be shooting out of his ears.

_Oh, I'm dead_, John thought.

Rogue pulled harder than she needed to and managed to make it look like he pushed her backwards. She collided with Bobby so that he was forced to catch her, giving John time to escape. This time, he didn't hesitate. With a final look at Rogue in Bobby's arms, John headed back to Magneto, glad to be empty-handed.

---

A/N: I'm actually a strong BobbyxRogue fan, but Ryro is just intriguing.

I actually kept it to a oneshot this time...

Thanks for reading/reviewing!

--X


	2. Rogue's POV

A/N to new readers: If you haven't read the first two stories of this series (What We Don't See and Triple Scoop), then you probably won't understand this one. It's set in Triple Scoop and it was mostly written to tie up some loose ends.

A/N to old readers: I just realized that I had started another one of these and never finished it. So now I have. It's the same scene from Rogue's POV. So much for a one-shot.

Disclaimer: I still don't own anything.

**Baked Alaska**

That voice was so familiar. Rogue stopped and her hand flew to grab Bobby's arm, but he had already frozen in place too. She hadn't heard the voice since Alkali Lake, the day he walked away from them.

_"Do you always do what you're told?"_ John had mocked them.

"Pete, get Marie and Jimmy out of here!" Bobby shouted.

Rogue frowned indignantly. She wasn't going to run. "Bobby Drake, if you think for one second I'm going to _run away_ like some sort o-" Rogue's frown deepened as Piotr's large hand swept her to the back of the group.

"Stay there."

She didn't want to stand by helplessly while they all got torched. She wasn't one to keep her distance when things got rough. Magneto had used her once before and if he wanted her again, she would handle it again. This wasn't Bobby's fight to fight, it was her's. John had been her friend too, he had betrayed her too, and she was hurt just as much as Bobby was when he left. But Bobby turned that pain into anger, because he didn't understand. Rogue couldn't. She knew what it was like to just need to run. John had been unhappy at school; he didn't like being treated like a child and ignored and suppressed. Magneto offered him the spotlight as the right hand man of one of the most powerful mutants on earth. Magneto offered him godhood.

Rogue had runaway before; she knew how tempting it was when life became too much to just want to start over. She had been Marie and become Rogue, she had been a freak and become normal. John was just looking for the opposite. He became Pyro and went from one of a hundred students to a god among men.

Flames heated Rogue's back and she realized John had encircled them with fire and he was cackling.

"If Bobby would just send the kid away, he could fight too, isn't that right Iceman?" John said.

Rogue studied John closely. He looked angrier than usual, but that could have been the reflection of the fire in his eyes giving her that impression. Still, his smile was different. It was too sarcastic and twisted, not at all the joking grin he had always flashed for Rogue and Bobby. That was the thing Rogue had learned about running away, starting over, and having all that freedom - it got very lonely.

"Tell me when you start melting, ok?" John said in a mockingly conversational tone. Everything he said was sarcastic and it was driving Rogue crazy, because he obviously wasn't happy.

Rogue stepped around Colossus and made her way to the front of the group, standing just inches from the flames in front of her. Maybe it was her imagination, but they seemed to die down a little as she approached them. "What happened to you John?" she asked.

For a second Rogue saw recognition pass through him. She saw his eyes flash with the understanding of what he had become and how different he was from the boy she had known. Then he seemed to remember his cause, perhaps a little reluctantly. He rolled his eyes and said, "I'm trying to do you a favor, Rogue, and put you back the way you're supposed to be." He paused and his eyes flicked to the side. Rogue knew something was coming, but didn't have time to warn Bobby. "NOW!" John shouted and a man leaped over the flames and rolled into their midst. Before they could react, John's accomplice grabbed Jimmy and bolted away. With her powers back and even more upset now that her date had been kidnapped, Jubilee attacked with a fireworks display that Rogue didn't want to be on the receiving end of. John clearly wasn't too happy about it.

"Jubilee!" Rogue yelled, trying to call her off. Jubilee ignored her and continued her light show in John's face. Rogue panicked, feeling helpless. She understood John. All he needed was time to understand himself, to figure himself out like Rogue had done for herself. If that took him running away, that was something Rogue could understand and it was something important. Rogue was going to help him do that. She ran forward before Bobby could stop her and pulled Jubilee off of John. He blinked a few times as his eyes adjusted and then focused on Rogue. She stood above him, trying to figure out how to help him without seeming to. He wouldn't accept help, especially if it was offered so obviously in front of his enemies. If she humiliated him like that, he would never forgive her.

So she kicked him. Not very hard, just enough to make it look like she was angry at him. John reacted automatically and tripped Rogue so that she landed on top of him. She waited, not breathing, not moving, for what seemed like forever. His skin felt hot against hers, but when she looked into his eyes, the firey, angry John wasn't there. He looked like his old self. John didn't move, but Rogue saw that as a good sign. He was thinking. She could see the gears turning in his head, the struggle between Pyro and her old friend John.

She didn't want to interrupt him, but she wasn't sure how long she had been lying on top of him and she was sure Bobby wouldn't stand for it too much longer. They were running out of time. "John?" she whispered. His eyes refocused on her, looking confused and regretful. That was enough for now. Rogue pushed herself off of John, managing to pull him up too. John's eyes shifted behind her and widened, which Rogue took to mean that Bobby was iced up and angry. To save John from Bobby's wrath, Rogue pulled so that it looked like John pushed her. She let herself lose her balance and fell backwards, forcing Bobby to catch her. Luckily, John got the point and ran, but not without one last sad look at Rogue and Bobby together.

Somehow that look destroyed all of Rogue's joy at her success. That look was pained. It was the kind of hopeless look that signified giving up. It was a love lost kind of look that completely blew Rogue's mind. She had thought all along that she knew John so well, but now she realized that she had missed a major part of him. She just honestly had never thought that he saw her that way.

Bobby helped Rogue get her own balance and powered down. He looked mad at her.

"You let him get away," Bobby accused. "We could have had him."

Bobby was angry and it was better just to let him stew about it for a while. Rogue wouldn't have been able to explain it all to him anyway. She just let him be right. "Sorry I couldn't do more to stop him," she said in a way that alluded to the fact that she was powerless whether or not Jimmy was around. That made Bobby feel bad for yelling at her, although it didn't completely placate his anger.

"He'll be back," Bobby said and Rogue knew that he was planning to keep John from escaping the next time.

"Yeah," Rogue said more to herself than to anyone else. She looked down in the direction John had disappeared. "He'll be back."

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A/N: Thanks to everyone who reads and responds. It's greatly appreciated and keeps me writing!


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